Greg Mortenson is a Serial Killer! (And How to Break it to the Kids)

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Greg Mortenson is a Serial Killer! (And How to Break it to the Kids)

OK, now that I’ve got your attention, please calm down, everybody. Especially you, Jon Krakauer and “60 Minutes.” Of course Mortenson isn't a serial killer. Notably, he is also not the messiah.

If you’ve read “Three Cups of Tea,” you know what I mean. Mortenson lives in disorganization the same way the way the rest of us live in our skins. He and his huge, huge heart go around Afghanistan, building schools for girls, making fast friends, charming everybody and then making them all insane with his general lack of plans, follow-through, punctuality or, apparently, receipts.

I have never been to central Asia, but for several years I traveled frequently to sub-Saharan Africa, doing health research in Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Botswana and Malawi.* So I have a bit of experience in the developing world.

When I read “Three Cups of Tea” a while back, I wasn’t as gaga as most about Mortenson. Yes, he’s an extraordinary man with extraordinary accomplishments, but from an institutional perspective he’s an unholy mess. When my kids' school did a community read of "Three Cups of Tea" and Pennies for Peace drive, I was delighted with it all but felt alone in my ambivalent opinion of Mortenson.

In my view, it’s all about the model of change (and yes, I will get to the saucy accusations about Mortenson, but first you have to suffer through this earnest part about theory and ideas).

To me, “helping” in the developing world is ethically fraught, desperately exhausting and sometimes impossible if carried out by outsiders. But when it works it’s great. So how does change that actually benefits people actually happen?

There are lots of ways, but one model goes like this: A charismatic and intrepid individual, usually from a wealthy nation, picks a region or topic and, starting from nothing, gathers followers and builds a movement. It’s a cult of personality and amazing stuff gets done. It has happened many times.

Hooray! This model has its advantages, and I’m all for that if it works, especially if it can have a sustained life beyond the Intrepid Individual. But there are big problems with this model too (just as there are advantages and problems with every other way of making change: small-scale, large-scale, unilateral, multilateral, community-based, faith-based, Pokemon-based, whatever.)

One of the hoariest problems with the Intrepid Individual model is that deities can’t last. In fact, they never exist in the first place. And like a balloon rising in the sky, the more attention Mortenson got for his work the greater the news value of attacking him. The news narrative goes like this. Please read this out loud in a grave and sonorous voice:

__You thought he was wonderful and inspiring, and you told yourchildren about him, but look! We’ve discovered he’s a fraud and a liar! __

It’s a shocking reversal, just like when the favorite gets voted off of American Idol (oh, no, not Pia!) In the end, ratings win.

As for the details of the “60-Minutes” accusations, I have chewed them over and read all I could about them. I have the urge to write them all down in a nice orderly list with rebuttals, but that would bore everybody. I also have the urge to let loose some self-righteous snark like this:

Dear Steve Kroft, the “60 Minutes” host: When you interview people with leading lines like, “You seem to be saying that most of [Mortenson’s story] is BS,” you only embarrass yourself. When you ambush someone at a public event, you look like a shmuck.

__Dear Jon Krakauer, the accuser: __You faced an almost identical attack on your own credibility regarding your book “Into Thin Air” several years ago. Are you acting out your frustrations, honey?

But no! I won’t say those things, I won’t take their bait! (Notice how I actually did get to say all those things and still get to take the moral high ground here? Oh, I am clever.)

Instead I will say that maybe Mortenson’s budget is imbalanced and his accounts are a mess, or maybe they aren’t, what do I know? I can totally believe Mortenson is an atrocious accountant. Maybe he cleaned up some stories in his book, and maybe he didn’t. Isn’t that the essence of writing, and memory? Isn’t that why we treasure one telling of a story over another?

But I am not arguing that we should lower our standards and not care about such things. Yes, the behavior of nonprofit execs does matter.

What I am arguing is that if these accusations are true, they don’t make Mortenson evil. They don’t make his entire life’s work a sham. He doesn’t deserve this thrashing any more than he deserves the hero worship.

So that's my position. How to talk to kids about it? Well, when I told my boys, ages 6 and 10, that someone is accusing Mortenson of being a fraud and a liar, there was a long silence. Then my 10-year-old said something that made my GeekMom's heart soar: "Well... what's the evidence?" Hooray for open-minded critical thinking, especially among the young whippersnappers! There ensued a nice discussion about evaluating sources, information and motives. Also about hero-worship and its pitfalls.

I happen to sit on the board of a terrific foundation that funnels contributions to carefully selected charities. This quarter, one of our donees is the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson's group. I am very proud that we have not pulled our support, and have started a discussion with our donors about the issue.

In sum: Please, let’s just keep our heads and let Mortenson sort out his books and his public relations. This man is not a god or a demon, and kids can totally relate to that.

* Cue “60-Minutes” to travel to each of these countries and find locals who swear that they have never seen me there.